Soil salinization’s expansion has emerged as a significant global environmental and socioeconomic threat, poised to worsen with projected climate change. This phenomenon, affecting 7% of land area and 33% of irrigated lands globally, imposes detrimental abiotic stress and is expected to escalate due to anthropogenic-induced climate shifts. This poses a growing risk to global food security for the rapidly increasing human population.
To sustain plant production amidst this “salty” future, understanding plant salt stress tolerance mechanisms—such as sensing, signaling, and physiological and morphological adaptations—is crucial. Developing novel salt-tolerant crops is a key strategy to mitigate productivity losses under salinity. Many plant species have evolved unique strategies to survive in saline environments, highlighting the potential for engineering resilient crops to sustain food production in more saline soils.
Despite progress, there remains much to uncover about how plants perceive, signal, and respond to salinity stress to adapt their growth and development for survival in saline soils. Understanding these molecular mechanisms is essential for engineering crops capable of thriving in salt-affected environments.